"Some people?"

"Oui, some gentlemen, look you. Civvies, with Staff officers."

"Civilians! Let's hope they'll stick it!" [note 3]

It is the sacramental saying and evokes laughter, although we have
heard it a hundred times, and although the soldier has rightly or
wrongly perverted the original meaning and regards it as an ironical
reflection on his life of privations and peril.

Two Somebodies come up; two Somebodies with overcoats and canes.
Another is dressed in a sporting suit, adorned with a plush hat and
binoculars. Pale blue tunics, with shining belts of fawn color or
patent leather, follow and steer the civilians.

With an arm where a brassard glitters in gold-edged silk and golden
ornament, a captain indicates the firing-step in front of an old
emplacement and invites the visitors to get up and try it. The
gentleman in the touring suit clambers up with the aid of his
umbrella.

Says Barque, "You've seen the station-master at the Gare du Nord,
all in his Sunday best, and opening the door of a first-class
compartment for a rich sportsman on the first day of the shooting?
With his 'Montez, monsieur le Propritaire!'--you know, when the
toffs are all togged up in brand-new outfits and leathers and
ironmongery, and showing off with all their paraphernalia for
killing poor little animals!"